Intuition and the Creation of a Better World

Bernbaum, Edwin

A powerful symbol like Shambhala can do more than simply stand for some hidden truth or aspect of reality: It can also act as a window that opens up a view of something beyond itself. If we approach it in the right way, we may be able to look right through it and catch a glimpse of what it symbolizes. At such a moment, when a symbol yields a sudden insight or flash of intuition, it actually seems to turn transparent like a pane of glass and reveal a hidden vista full of unexpected depth and meaning. We suddenly see the implications of what it symbolizes stretching away before us, as if into a far distance. The symbol gives us a sense of an open and spacious panorama that extends beyond the limited horizon of what we know. In this panorama we may find the solution to a mundane problem or a mystical experience of the universe. We may get a sudden understanding of how an automobile works, or, like the English poet William Blake,